Oakland postal worker charged in $4 million fraud

OAKLAND

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, March 21, 2012

A post office employee in Oakland has been charged with illegally billing the U.S. Postal Service more than $4 million by steering contracts to a truck-leasing company he runs with his wife.

Balvinder Singh Chadha, 45, of Union City, who served as manager of postal vehicle service operations in Oakland, oversaw contracts with vendors and "knew that he was ethically prohibited" from steering deals to his trucking firm, according to the charging document filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Oakland.

But in 2005, Chadha nominated a trucking business that he and his wife operated and invested in, Golden Pacific Logistics Inc., as a truck-leasing vendor for the Postal Service, federal prosecutors said. He allegedly hid his interest in the company.

Over the next four years, Chadha submitted fraudulent invoices to the Postal Service, overstating the number of trucks his firm leased and other factors, authorities said.

The trucking company received more than $6 million from the Postal Service during those years, of which $4 million was fraudulently billed, authorities said.

Chadha has been charged with wire fraud. Both he and his wife, Jaspinder Kaur Chadha, 39, have been charged with conspiracy for allegedly telling company associates to hide Balvinder Chadha's participation in the company.